Socket Monopoly: NVIDIA Buys Out 5 GW of Capacity Through Alliance with IREN

The main shortage in the artificial intelligence industry is definitively recognized not as chips, but as basic electricity. On May 7, 2026, NVIDIA Corporation announced a strategic partnership with data center operator IREN (Iris Energy), entailing investments of up to $2.1 billion.

The goal of the deal is unprecedented: the deployment of a colossal 5 gigawatts (GW) of power capacity for AI infrastructure. To understand the scale: 5 GW is comparable to the consumption of a small European country. NVIDIA is radically changing its business model. Selling Blackwell accelerators is no longer enough; the company is vertically integrating, buying up rights to physical megawatts and space in data centers. Whoever controls cooling (recall the recent Schneider Electric report) and transformers today will control the global Agentic AI market tomorrow, leaving independent startups no chance to rent cheap servers.

Source: NVIDIA / IREN / Reuters